Flood susceptibility assessment for ungauged sites in urban areas using spatial modeling

Abstract

In urban areas, flood susceptibility assessment is of special importance because of the high settlement population, properties, and infrastructures. Geospatial information science (GIS) provides a tool for investigating flood susceptibility based on several aspects including economic damages and critical infrastructures in cities. This study aims to provide a tool based on GIS analyses to support decision‐makers in identifying flood hazards in urban areas, in which previous flood data, flood causative factors, and urban infrastructure data are not adequately available. To assess flood susceptibility in the study area, the related spatial high‐resolution data were produced. Then, flood zones were estimated for different recurrence intervals using meteorological data. Finally, susceptibility was assessed in urban areas for different urban infrastructures using GIS modeling. The model was designed based on the assumption that any critical urban infrastructure, such as power towers, was affected by flood zones and, in addition to flooding, could cause hazards by itself. Moreover, five scenarios were defined to calculate susceptibility when in the problematic locations of the floodway. DoAsb Floodway was chosen as a case study located in Zanjan city, northwest of Iran. The results indicated the high‐susceptible areas around the floodway. Moreover, the flood susceptibility level for each urban infrastructure in the study area was calculated and classified into five classes from low susceptible to very high susceptible. Also, the results of the five scenarios showed if some parts of the floodway had problems, the susceptibility rate would be high. The generated flood susceptibility maps of this model can be used to plan suitable programs in order to avoid flood damage and ensure public safety.

Flood vulnerability and Risk assessment using the Integration of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), GIS, and Remote Sensing: A Case Study of southern Oromia Region.

“…Floods are the most deadly, prevalent, and widespread catastrophic occurrence on the planet, among the natural phenomena capable of causing a calamity (Masoumi 2021) (Adhanom 2018). After droughts, floods are Africa's second and greatest environmental disaster (K. S. Vignesh 2020).…”

A novel hybrid GIS‐based multi‐criteria decision‐making approach for flood susceptibility analysis in large ungauged watersheds

“…Identifying and detecting the flood‐prone areas require high‐quality Flood Susceptibility Maps (FSM), and it is a crucial management tool to mitigate the flood events' consequences (Lin et al, 2019; Membele et al, 2022; Nachappa et al, 2020). In other words, flood susceptibility mapping is a primary and vital tool that decision‐makers can utilize for water resources programming, urban planning, sustainable land managing, hydraulic constructions planning, and infrastructure to lessen flood damage in the future (Ahmadlou et al, 2021; Arabameri, Rezaei, et al, 2019; Ekmekcioğlu et al, 2021; Masoumi, 2022). Also, mapping and analysis of flood susceptibility are one of the most important parts of early warning systems establishing strategies for prevention and mitigation of future flood events since it identifies the most susceptible areas based on physical conditions that determine the tendency for flooding (Vojtek & Vojteková, 2019).…”